Charon's Folly
by DanteBeatrice77
Summary: Lost Girl/Rizzoli and Isles crossover. Jane goes down in the line of duty, and a Valkyrie is summoned to take her to Valhalla. Meanwhile, weird things are happening in Jane's old neighborhood, and Angela has recruited a special someone to investigate. Will be M for language, possibly for sexual scenes later in the story.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: I'm back again! This time with a crossover and not any original characters. This is purely fanservice for myself, as a fan of both Lost Girl and Rizzoli and Isles, and any fans that feel the same. I don't know which ships I'm going to include besides Rizzles, if I do include any at all. I just really want them all to meet and solve crimes and be hot together, lol. I'm not quite sure how long this will be, but I do have a story arc/outline pretty much all planned out. Enjoy, and as always, let me know what you think! People can tell you that I try my hardest to always respond to reviews that aren't anon, and I never turn anon off, despite some of the wacky things that can happen on this site. I do really love to hear from you guys. So, without anymore rambling from me, let's all have some fun with this story. :)**

* * *

The time-place between Earth and Valhalla, wonky and weird as it was, proved to be the homey-est place Tamsin had known in all of her many lives. While she did not necessarily conform to every aspect of the job description, the title of Valkyrie came with certain truths: you were always a guide, you were always a wanderer. When you shouldered heroes from the battlefield to the promised land, there existed no real room for your own settling down, or your own contentment. You drifted wherever Odin sent, and the familiarity of the murky travel in this mid-world felt the closest to... _routine_ as she would get, at least before she herself returned to Valhalla for good.

Which, in all likelihood, would be soon. She had her wings now. This signaled the beginning of the last of her lives. Mostly, she resembled herself as she had always been: blondwhite hair, polar-Viking eyes, lean, tall, and well-muscled. Now, however, when faced with danger or a directive, she unfurled beastly feathered wings – white, twelve feet from tip to tip. They allowed her ease of access to fallen bodies across the world. For each one to which her master summoned her, she needed only to reveal those wings in her human form, and flap them once or twice to get to that space and one dimension over, where their soul awaited her to escort them to their own long-due celebration in the great hall.

She really could fly anywhere, at any moment. She boasted over a thousand years' experience; she'd ushered through more warriors than she could ever hope to remember. Thus, her recent situation puzzled her: ever since she was relocated to Toronto by the Dark Fae, the calls for her services had been few and far between. She sensed the demise of great leaders and vicious fighters all over the globe, but only ever took home those within what she considered to be walking distance. Did she piss off Odin? She wondered, but dared not ask. He wasn't really the type of guy you stopped to interrogate. She did know one thing, though: he wasn't using one of his oldest and most powerful Valkyries to the best of her ability. She still found herself not only compelled, but intrigued, by the people she picked up, however. Humans and fae alike never ceased to amaze her in their bravery, and also stupidity. Many died facing odds that would petrify lesser souls, but many also ran full into their deaths, guns ablaze, so to speak, when strategy might have extended their earthly life. Nevertheless, Odin had a special place in his heart for these, and the backstory of all of them kept her interest, even when she'd thought she'd heard everything.

She had never, however, heard _gossip _quite like that she'd encountered in recent weeks among her fellow soul collectors. A new warrior was to die quite soon. Here in the dank, damp soul dimension above Boston, she supposed she would finally see what had the hens squawking. They never knew the gender, or the age, or the general background of their beloved warriors, warm in their hearts (they did move heaven and hell for these people after all), but how many times had she heard words like _handsome, brash, _and _human hurricane_ in the past seven days? They didn't learn their names until seeing them for the first time, when Odin would send the information to them, but Acacia, her mentor, had even said _magnanimous in the Latin sense, great-souled_, and licked her lips, swayed her hips, wiggled her eyebrows.

Valkyries had the ability to sense coming directives, and those that she knew, her sisters, had started to pine over this one. It occurred once every so often: a particularly larger-than-life hero would be predicted to die in battle, and they would scramble to see who had the honor of picking them up. She usually abstained from themerriment, but this time was different. She couldn't help but feel a little curious as she started to feel the hero's lifeforce call to her, too. But then it intensified. She smelled them wherever she walked, sandalwood and lavender in places there should be none, at Dyson's, her partner's, desk, or in Bo's arms, Bo, the succubus who wrapped herself in a gardenia perfume. She heard the gunshot that would bring them down – at a restaurant, in Dr. Lauren Lewis' lab as she had the doc stitch up her latest scrape, before she'd lay her head down to sleep.

It all crept into her life at once, and then she knew: _she_ would be the one to escort this warrior to the other side. So, here she was, wings out as she walked, traversing the dark and hollow passage to Valhalla. The place itself reeked of freshly spilled blood and gunpowder – the fatal wound a rippling bullet through the gut, no doubt. The stench clawed at her nostrils and crept up under her tongue, and then she saw the body.

Lying down, face up, immaculate clothes and skin despite the smell – the sure sign of fresh death. Tamsin's eyes crinkled in pity. A woman, mid thirties by the looks of it. She saw the badge slung about her neck and immediately felt a pang of emotion: Boston Homicide. The Valkyrie's human job was the same, a homicide detective in Toronto moonlighting as an investigator of all things fae, or what humans called supernatural. _Too young_, Tamsin thought, _too young to be meeting me here. We should have met on the other side. _They were always too young as far as her life went, being over a millenium old, but this one? She felt the waste. Her sisters in arms had bragged and fawned over her, but the woman only looked small, lifeless and cold. Pale in the nonlight of their surroundings, quiet enough for the Valkyrie to hear the faint lap of water not far off.

But then it happened.

Obsidian eyes shot open. Lungs, silent for too long, ballooned, bursting against her chest in a force that only consciousness could manage. Each subsequent breath, post-death as they were, returned color to her limbs. Blood suffused muscles and skin with bronze and suddenly Tamsin fucking _got it. _The woman's raven hair, wild against the foggy ground and against her jagged face, feminized her, sovreignized her.

"..._ Jane," _Tamsin breathed out, thankful the something came to her in that moment, even if it was bestowed upon her by someone else.

Jane, Boston Homicide detective, focused her pupils at the sound of her name. She saw Tamsin, jumped, caught between scooting far away and being far too afraid to move. "_S...s.. Santa Lucia?_" she choked, hoping against hope that the winged woman kneeling before her was in fact the benevolent figure of her childhood.

The blonde exhaled with a chuckle at the question. Still human. Impressive so far, _handsome _most definitely, but still human. "Not quite. But we can see her if you'd like. You only need to come with me, Warrior," for all her crassness in Toronto, a bit of the formality of the spirit world always bled through at the collection.

"Then, who are you?" Jane inquired. Her body tensed; she winced when Tamsin stood.

"Name's Tamsin. I'm a Valkyrie. I'm here to take you to Valhalla," she said simply. Jane surveyed her, sighed, then took her outstretched hand.


	2. Chapter 2

Usually, when the freshly dead stood, they wobbled; their legs, unused to the billowy terrain of the mid-world. Jane resumed her broad footwork, missing no beat from her previous life: planted wide, hips angled, pants slung low. Her shoulders cocked back, as if to compensate for her missing weapon, and her eyes turned tempestuous. At her full height, she stood even with the Valkyrie. She expelled a burst of air through her nose, and for just a moment, Tamsin thought she might charge. "You're a what now?" Jane asked, lips pulled tight. Her tone denoted how supremely _inconvenienced _the whole ordeal made her.

"A Valkyrie. Think of me as your tour guide through the spirit world," Tamsin said, "I make sure that you make it to the big party waiting for you on the other side." She stepped closer to her charge; they needed to be touching in order for Jane to be transported to Valhalla.

Jane seemed to consider the words for a moment. She scrutinized Tamsin, her Norman features and foreign wings. Her gaze dragged from boots to skin tight jeans to the leather jacket on winged shoulders. When it reached blue eyes, it flitted away and looked to her body again. _Ah-ha, was that fear I saw?, _Tamsin blonde swooped her head to be able to catch that chestnut stare again, just to be sure.

"They must have me loaded on morphine wherever I am, because this dream is a fucking trip," Jane scoffed. She winced again, a discomfort rumbling like clouds over her irises, leaving as soon as it came.

"Come again?" Tamsin asked.

"Well, I'm dreaming, aren't I? I've never seen you a day in my life. And look at me, I don't exactly feel dead, you know?" she gestured to her body with a wide swath of her hands, and looked around as if to find some sort of exit.

"Sorry, kid. This is the real deal. You're as dead as dead gets. Now, come with me and we can get you out of this dank-ass place."

Jane sighed. Would her brain really not let up? She had an investigation to get to. And if things really did go sour back there, she needed to wake up as soon as possible to let her partners know the details so they could catch the bastard she was after. She also admitted deep within herself that she had an itch to see Maura. "Alright, alright, I'll play along, as long as I get to ask some questions."

"I can live with that. But you're not dreaming. The sooner you accept that, the better," Tamsin agreed, and then held out her hand. Jane examined it, then gave her company a playful stare – a hell no of sorts. "Oh get over yourself. We have to be touching in order for me to move you from here to where we're goin' – or would you rather ride me?" With each word spoken between them, Tamsin seemed to regain some of the bawdy talk that characterized her on Earth.

Boston's finest chuckled in good humor. "Oh what the hell," she took the outstretched fingers. They walked for a few minutes, before the sound of water became louder in the distance. "Speaking of hell... is that where I'm going?"

The valkyrie drew them to the side of a deep river, letting go of Jane long enough to gain some composure. The scar on the detective's palm pulsated all of its pain into her own, and Tamsin saw flashes of everything she had witnessed in her short life. The scalpels of Charles Hoyt, the betrayal of her fiance, the agony of her first gunshot to the belly, which ironically, she had survived. A woman in red, weeping, striving desperately and without much luck to contain the flow of black seeping from Jane to the concrete around her.

It was a black flow that much resembled the river just a few inches from their matching workboots. "You're not going to hell, far from it. Just give me a second to test the water here." The blonde dipped a solitary white feather into the water, unwaterlike as it was, and shivered at the cold. The colder the water, the deeper the heartache of the decedent's loved ones on the other side. It would make the ferry ride treacherous for the soul in her care. If Jane fell in, she could be cursed to wander forever. With her track record, however, Odin might see it fit to rebirth her as a Valkyrie. Tamsin silently vowed to keep that from happening. It was a long life no one really wanted. Just as she rose to take Jane's hand again, a canoe, large, wide, deep, rolled into view and to them.

Jane knew she had to have been tripping MAJOR fucking balls at this point. What else was there to do but try and see herself through it as smoothly as possible? Well, as smoothly as Detective Jane Rizzoli could be. "Uh huh. So then, that leaves heaven. Tell me: why we would be ascending to heaven in this piece of shit?"

"You've got quite a mouth, detective, Jesus," the valkyrie responded, annoyed. Through all the fawning over her, her sisters forgot to mention that Jane was a real ass. "Get in," nevertheless, she took extra precaution to usher her into the boat. _I really should be getting a damn fare for this_. "And we're not really going to heaven, either. At least not heaven as you humans imagine it," once they were both safely inside, she grabbed a gray oar and began to row.

"You're not human, then? What are you? An angel, I'm guessing, by the wings on you. Quite a pair, I must say," the Italian wiggled her eyebrows suggestively, though the woman that they were attached to missed the tone entirely.

She only laughed bitterly. _An angel._ _Oh Jane, if only_. "Look, I'm not an angel, ok? We're going to Valhalla, because that is where I was told to take you. Despite your assholery, I'm told you very much belong there."

"What the hell is Valhalla?" Jane asked. She turned serious for a moment. "What is Valhalla and why am I going to it? Assuming I'm really dead, of course."

"You ARE really dead. Valhalla is a great hall, a celebration place for great warriors. Only the bravest of the brave, who've lost their lives on the battlefield, get to go there. Valkyries like me scoop warriors like you away once your soul has passed to this place," Tamsin explained as they eased along the river, "and then we take you there. And you valor is lauded from end to end."

At the explanation, Jane's body sunk. Her eyes unfocused, and her shoulders, rigid, powerful until now, went slack. That, for some reason, made a lot of sense to her. It resonated. Though her last moments were nothing more than a flurry of sweat, dread, and pain to her, she seemed to know exactly what the valkyrie was saying. They were words specifically designed for her, words that she did not yet have the courage to face. _Am I really... no longer alive? There's no way. And this is where I'm going, how I'm ending up? Man, did catholics ever get it wrong. _Perhaps, she mused, if she focused on the mechanics of how it all worked, she could distance herself from her own reality. It was what made her the prodigy of a detective she was in life – her dogged pursuit of the inner workings of things. Her relentless need for the truth of others' lives so that she needn't examine her own.

"Then what are you? You're not angel, and you're not human. And don't say you're a valkyrie; that means shit to me. Tell me in a way I can understand."

When she finally could talk, Jane's words carried bite. Tamsin, however, took it as an encouraging sign, let it roll off of her back and into the river below. "Ok, Hot Shot, I can try and do that. I'm a valkyrie, yeah. What that means is that when people like you die, brave, fierce people, when they die in a war, or a battle, metophorical or otherwise, their soul comes here. It's kind of like..." she stopped to row, to grit out some exertion as the waters began to speed up. Jane moved to help her, but she waved her off, "it's kind of like purgatory. Your soul ends up here, and then I come to whisk you away to where you belong. Where you'll spend the rest of eternity. But when I'm not doing the whole valkyrie thing? I'm a detective, just like you. Homicide. Toronto."

This stunned Jane. Discomfiture lurched about her in tandem with their boat. "So... you _are _human, then?"

"No," Tamsin winced, cursing herself for letting that part slip. She felt like she was on the wrong end of an interrogation.

"Then, what are you? Jesus Christ, what does it take to get some real answers, huh?!" the Bostonian slammed a fist against the side of the canoe closest to her, rocking them further. Tamsin grabbed her wrist in fear, anxious to keep her from going over the side.

"Ok, just don't do that shit! I'm responsible for your ass!" she yelled back. This could get very dangerous; their personalities were much too similar, and her charge was having an outburst completely unrelated to the woman across from her. Jane took a labored breath because, Tamsin thought, of what seemed to be a few icy droplets on her bare arm. She closed her eyes, as if to ward off pain, and then awaited further response. "Look, I'm fae. We're a... we're like a race of people that are a little older than humans. We have special abilities, most of the time. Mine happen to be what I'm doing now." Hopefully, if she spoke calmly, Jane would ease into acceptance of her situation. Hurricane seemed a more accurate description by the minute.

"F... fae? Are you bullshitting me? Where are you from?"

"Yeah, fae. And no I'm not bullshitting you. I happen to be from what is now Norway, but I live in Toronto. Like I said, I'm a cop, too. We're given regular human jobs to help us blend in."

"I'm sorry, I really am. But an ancient race of people that have special powers? Are you trying to tell me you're the X-Men or something?"

"More like your childhood bedtime stories. Usually the scary ones. People come in contact with us all the time, and always have. They just don't always have the words to describe us properly sometimes. But you don't need to worry about that now," the blonder offered, her voice softening, her hand reaching to cover Jane's, this time in comfort.

Neither spoke for a long while, and it was the deceased who finally broke the silence. "Tamsin?"

"Yeah, kid?"

"How did I die?"

"A hero."

They reached an embankment, their destination.


	3. Chapter 3

"ETA?! Vince, ETA!" Maura, held together only by the seatbelt strapped against her heart, wailed her demand. She twisted her body left and right, swung her head in every direction she could, trying desperately to find a way to their destination even milliseconds faster. Of course, in times of peace and calm, she doubted the supernatural. However, in times of distress, in this specific time of distress, she willed her body to come through and deliver her there, even if it meant something like sprouting a fucking second head. The sun was too bright, the siren above them on the hood of the car too loud, and her body contorted in a gnarl of grief and panic.

"I'm trying Maura, I'm trying. But we've gotta be around five minutes out," Vince Korsak, though not as visibly upset as the medical examiner next to him, had to choke out his words through the shaking. In moments like these, people counted on him to be a rock. Often, he was: when Detective Frost passed, he gathered up in his arms what felt like all of BPD. He gathered their mourning on his back, and shouldered it while they fell apart. But when it came to this? To Jane? No matter how much he struggled against it, his dread bled through. He shook his head at how unconvincing his attempted calm tone sounded.

"5 minutes?! Did you hear the radio?! She's been down for at least 3! I need to get to her!" Maura screamed, tears peppering her tongue, "Go faster!"

Vince shook his head again, and punched the gas. If he talked, he might cry. If he looked over at Maura, he might cry. If he didn't get to the scene and fast, he might cry. They had heard the call over the radio completely by accident. He had agreed to take Maura to the crime scene of a double homicide/kidnapping they were working in order to survey the area for any evidence her team might have missed. Dead ends had abounded until that morning, when a uniform received a call about suspicious activity near the home of a convicted felon they had questioned a week prior. An informant had reported "what sounded like children screaming". Somehow, Detective Rizzoli convinced that uniform and his partner to let her follow along on what seemed like a routine outing. It was the male officer's voice that blistered over Vince's radio just after he and Maura stepped back into the vehicle to drive down to another, farther part of the pier – they had misjudged the turn and needed to reroute. _Officer down! _was the garble that made them turn their heads to each other. The address, very close to their location, made Vince turn the key into the ignition. And the final clip, an interrupted …._badge... Victor 825 _thrust them into the chase they both longed to end, begged God to end.

It did, in three minutes, not five. Maura had no time to figure out whether that was good or bad, when she spotted the officer pacing back and forth near the property. Two young children sat on the porch behind him, huddled together as another officer, presumably his partner, volleyed between questioning them and comforting them. Maura shoved open the car door, force so strong it nearly bounced back into her shin. She sprinted, wedges and all, to him. "Where?!" she barked, a veritable storm to his eyes: mascara tracked down her cheeks, hair stuck to the tears that had trailed back toward her chin. She must have been five inches shorter than he, even with her heels, but he dared not delay.

"Out back, EMTs should be here in five," he leaped aside; she ran past him into the house, banging furniture on her knees and ankles, bursting out the back door and into the yard, where a low fence stood. Soon, Vince would be following other officers in their pursuit of the man who had hopped that fence. Who had kidnapped the children out front.

Who shot Jane.

_Who shot Jane._

_ Jane._

There was Jane, crumpled to the ground, an officer bending over her, preparing to check for a pulse. Maura skidded so hard in that direction she almost toppled him over. "MOVE," she seethed. He obliged, recognizing her instantly, and she noted the injury.

Jesus fucking fuck. _Jesus fucking fuck_, just like last time. She couldn't withhold the sob that croaked out of her when she realized – so much worse than last time, no consciousness, a barely-there pulse, Jane was leaving, if she hadn't gone already. The medical examiner took the ten seconds necessary to prepare herself and her patient for CPR, then began.

Her hands noted the contour, the limits of give and take of Jane's chest, her ribs, her collarbone. Her fingers locked, her knees straddled the body of her best friend. Her brain catalogued evidence in overtime, convinced her that it would be what allowed Jane to live. Pulse thready, diminishing by the second – she pumped. Penetrating trauma to the abdomen, climbing hypotension – pump, pump. External hemorrhage – pump, pump, pump until she reached 30.

* * *

"You died protecting two children, Jane. You stood between two kids and the man that was seconds away from killing them so that he could run," Tamsin said. Maybe Jane was now ready to accept the reality of her death. She wouldn't sugarcoat it, but there really was no need. The reason Jane sat in her ferry needed no fabrication. She escorted her to Valhalla for this valor. Jane, already the Valkyrie could tell, represented a heady mixture of hard-headedness and justice. _Like Bo_. Within moments, they exited the boat and commenced their walking

"Well, I remember the case. It was down to the wire, with not much to sniff the guy out," Jane mused, taking herself back to the hours before... the incident. "Can you believe I had to sweet talk that uniform to let me tag – FUCK!" a jagged pain, straight through her belly, cut her rant short. She crumpled to the ground, jugular and carotid distended in her neck, teeth clenched, saliva coating the sides of her mouth.

"Shit, shit! Jane, Jane look at me. What's happening? You need to tell me exactly what's going on!" Tamsin lifted her head up by the chin, but immediately removed her fingers when she saw the blood vessels in her charge's eyes, full to the point of bursting. There would be no way Jane could talk through whatever agony had taken hold of her. "Ok, nod for yeah, shake for no. Is it hard to breathe?" and nod in response, quick, as though anything longer would kill her. "Alright. Pain all in your gut?" This time, the nod was only half-formed before the Bosonian detective collapsed. Unconscious. Not breathing. Not moving. No pulse. Ironically, these things all pointed to one conclusion. "Of fucking course. You're alive."

* * *

_Oh Jane_, she shook her head. Wild hair mingled with grass splayed itself around her head, eyes closed, mouth closed, body unresponsive. "Jane, Baby, I'm sorry to have to do this. In all likelihood I'm going to break your ribs," she said through tears, "but I need you to stay with me. I can't lose you, ok? I can't lose you." She opened the detective's mouth with a thumb to her lower lip, and breathed, long and loud, into her. Their mouths lingered together, Maura suffused with dangerous, dangerous hope when she saw her friend's lungs balloon. Another breath later, she resumed her work.

She might have heard dogs bark and a man scream just beyond them, she might have heard the boots of the emergency responders thundering behind her, she might have heard one of them tell her that they had it from here. She only heard for certain her own heartbeat in her ears, rushing twice as hard now that Jane's pulse had begun to rise. Steadily. It, her heart, rushed for two now. She hoped that would be enough as they carted Jane Rizzoli into the house and out to a waiting ambulance. _Only time would tell._


	4. Chapter 4

Always with the smell – bitter, artificial, sickening. Jane knew, had recently come to terms with the fact, that the smell permeated her life now and forever. It tasted like what she imagined a flickering fluorescent light would taste like. Hazy and heavy, with the _bzz-bzz crackle _of something hovering between forever-sleep and jerky half-awakeness. The last time she smelled it was in Maura's lab. She needed an update on forensics for the murder-kidnapping, and of course she got the worst kind of update: nothing. It peppered her tongue like a peroxide lollipop, the smell, and yet, with Maura so intertwined with her life as to practically be one with her, she accepted it as a necessary nuisance.

At least that time, however, and every time in the morgue before that, the burn in her nostrils was tempered by the vision of Maura – impeccably warm and inviting, a hint, a prologue to the best hugs Jane would ever get. Now, there was only black. No sign of Tamsin, no sign of that murky netherworld shit she had dreamed up, no boat, no angel wings. Though she reasoned that this total blackness suited her idea of death more than a snarky Valkyrie detective, it evoked in her the yearning to open her eyes more than anything. At first she thought that she couldn't. She pushed, she pulled, she shook with the effort. What seemed like hours, days, passed. Why had she awoken? She remembered agony, buckling in front of the woman her brain had conjured up, but at least it was _something_. Now she had nothing. Except for the smell.

_And the squeeze of a hand._

Dear sweet fucking god, the hand that had been in hers, a hand she had grasped in her own countless times. It was small, sweet, soft. Its thumb caressed her thumb. Could she squeeze back? Another try, another no. But she needed to at least see it. So, with one final effort, she forced her eyelids to part. It was a colossus of an undertaking. Her body chastised her for it, sent exhaustion to punish her, to try and take her away again.

Little did her body know that it waged war against the only enemy it could never conquer. _Maura._

Maura was there. Holding her hand, seated across from her. There was linoleum, and there was a worn chair that Maura seemed to inhabit, quite literally. Had she moved from it in days? Rumpled clothes, blood under her fingernails, shoes off in a public place. _Man, _Maura looked fucking rough. Jane wondered where she herself was seated that the medical examiner was across from her looking shitty, and then she heard it. _Beep, beep... beep, _the most torturing sound in her short existence: Alive? Yes. Well? Not by a long shot if they gotta hear your heart through one of those things. _Fuck, I fucked up again._

The fucking hospital. Home away from home, where the smell always lingered. No shortage of it here, and as long as Jane was in a bed, there was also no shortage of Isles tears. They had dried for now, but wait til Maura got a look at her. Better to get it over with, she surmised. "Guess... guess I dodged a bullet... again.. huh?" Her throat blazed with the exertion of thrusting such a simple question out of her mouth. It sounded little more than a whisper, hoarse, as though she had taken to chasing gravel with whiskey. Felt like she chased broken glass with rubbing alcohol.

Maura, as usual, did not laugh. Her head snapped to Jane's face and her lower lip quivered (_tears again_), but her eyes narrowed farther than Jane had ever seen before. She pinched the detective's thenar eminence. "That is _not _funny. You literally did quite the opposite."

Jane winced. Maybe the joke wasn't such a good idea. Maura, she was sure, had probably been through a lot since she got herself holed up in here. "Maura."

"What?" the doctor, wisps of hair in her face on account of her haphazard ponytail, glanced anywhere but at Jane, lips still pursed.

"Maura, look at me," Jane pleaded, despite the pain it caused her windpipe.

After several epic seconds, Maura obliged, looking more vulnerable than the Italian had seen in a long while.

"I'm awake."

"You're awake," Maura, sobbed, chuckled, and sighed at once. Indeed. She stood and wrapped Jane's head in her arms, kissing slowly the side of her head, her ear, her eyebrow, anything in reach. "You're alive... even though you died. You died, Jane. You had died when I got to you."

This gave the cop pause. She no longer reveled in the softwetness of her best friend's affection, of the welcome smell of her three-day old perfume. "Wait a minute. I died?"

Maura pulled back, nodding solemnly. "In addition to the two times you died the last time you suffered such a traumatic gunshot wound, you did it again three days ago, Jane Rizzoli. You have died thrice in the years that I have known you. Sometimes I wonder if you're a ghost."

"So I really did die? Where? Was it dark? Like near a river?"

This concerned the pathologist somewhat, even if only because blackouts prove that the mind is a fallible thing. Jane clearly had no recollection of the moments right up until the incident. "No, of course not. It was at the suspect's home, in his backyard. You were in pursuit, and he fired a bullet meant for two children that went through you instead."

"That bastard Hayes. Him? He killed me?" Jane asked, struggling with the last question. She really needed to shut her trap, but damn if everything was starting to get real weird. If she _had _really died, did she also really meet Tamsin on the other side?

Maura on the other hand, was heartened by Jane's quickly returning memory. "Yes. Him. Backup arrived on scene, and helped to bring Hayes into custody. He is receiving treatment for gunshot wounds sustained in his fleeing of the scene, but then he will be at the mercy of Sergeant Korsak and the other detectives," knowing this, that justice would be acted out, put Maura more at ease, but she could see the agitation on her friend's face. "But that's a conversation for later. Are you in pain, sweetheart?"

Jane felt herself slipping quickly. Her stomach hurt like a motherfucker and she wanted sleep. She could no longer speak because of the pain, and she heard Maura's voice in slow whisps all about her. When the question reached her, she knew she was in for some morphine – not really her favorite pastime, but if it helped her rest, she was desperate enough to receive it. The last thing she remembered was a blonde, tall, dressed in white scrubs, adjusting a tube connected to her arm. "Tamsin?"

* * *

"Jane, honey?! A little birdie told me that you were awake!" none other than Angela peeked her head through the doorway of Jane's most recent hospital room, one seemingly all her own – no neighbors in sight. Maybe Mass Gen was finally giving her VIP treatment; God knew she'd been there enough. Maura saw her, smiled, waved her in, but didn't speak. She pointed to Jane, asleep due to the drugs ebbing and flowing through her veins.

"I just had the nurse put her back down for a bit, I'm sorry, Angela. But she was in a lot of pain. I think it had her a bit out of sorts," the medical examiner whispered. She sipped on a coffee she had retrieved between Jane's odd last word and Angela's arrival. It tasted bitter and stale and it stank even worse, but she supposed beggars couldn't be choosers, especially when it came to caffeine. Her tea would have to wait until the woman in the bed recuperated.

"Oh, that's too bad..." Angela said, looking crestfallen only for a moment, "but I'd rather her get all the rest she needs if that means she can come home faster." Still lingering in the doorway, she smiled in gratitude to Maura. "I'm just so glad she's out of the danger zone."

"Well, while she is stable, there is still some risk of infection. But come, sit awhile. I could use the company," Maura said, smiling back.

Angela finally entered after motioning behind her as though beckoning another to enter. Did she bring Frankie? Not possible; he was pulling double overtime since Jane had gone down. Maybe Tommy? He had been pretty busy with TJ and plumbing jobs in the past few weeks, but perhaps. It might even have been one of Jane's childhood friends, as Angela sometimes brought them around to see her. She was convinced seeing them lifted Jane's spirits and helped her to recover. _Oh, Angela. _

The entering person, however, turned out to be none of these. At the sight of her, for she was _most definitely _a woman, a surge of petty jealousy and self-consciousness hit Maura, both rare in her, yet simultaneous at the sight of black leather boots contouring against the bottoms of black leather pants. She swore she could count the strokes it took to paint it all on. A black tank top cut right below the smoothest cream she'd ever seen in a skin tone, cleavage aside. That too of course, was perfect – what of it that was visible made the doctor wonder if she had committed a sin in trying to date exclusively men in the past year. It all came together with a blue leather jacket, zipped just below her breasts by what must have been the darkest of arts to get it all to stay so perfectly, and the long, straight black hair pulled away from arabica eyes and razor brows all but confirmed it. The pathologist did not know whether to cry out of frustration or arousal, but damn, she did want to cry. The woman only smiled back in warmth, in bridled confidence, as if she knew exactly the effect she were having, even apologizing for it.

"Maura, I hope you don't mind, but we were having a meeting at my house when you called, and she was so kind as to come along when I heard that Jane was awake! This is Bo: I called her to do a bit of... research for me."


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: Thank you all for taking the time to read the story up until this point! The plot starts to move along a little more, and we get to meet the lovely Bo. Let me know what you think and I hope you enjoy! I'm not sure how many more chapters this will be, but, again, I do have the whole thing planned out. Happy reading and reviewing!**

* * *

_Angela, when stressed, took to tidying anything within reach. And, even though she'd received the name through marriage and not birthright, patience was a Rizzoli sin, not a Rizzoli virtue. Such a cocktail made quick work of Maura Isles' already immaculate countertop; she buffered it with her ever-present white rag. Usually, at noon on a Saturday, she would be one of two places: at the cafe, taking inventory, or babysitting her grandson, and so her only safeguard against Maura walking in and interrogating her about what must be wrong was the fact that the woman had taken up a vigil at Jane's bed side. The only reason she wasn't there herself was the person (hopefully) on their way to the house at that very moment._

_ They had exchanged phone calls and Angela had emailed a woman named Kenzi a few times to set up this little meeting, but Bo was making the trip all the way from Toronto. Considering the fact that she was driving, the Rizzoli matriarch could only hope that she made it to their meeting on time. It was key to being as undetectable as possible. Not that the meeting involved anything sinister, at least not on their parts. However, for the time being, she preferred to keep it a secret from her daughter. An ailing detective did not need to be riled up when she was at her most vulnerable: unable to return to work._

_ You see, strange things had happened in the old neighborhood while Janey slept over at Mass Gen. Things that she, as a homicide cop, would feel compelled to investigate if she were 100 percent. Things that spooked Angela beyond her usual paranoia – things that looked sort of routine on the outside, but lingered with her on the inside. Someone she knew died. That alone wasn't enough to really shake her; she was at the age now that sometimes that happened. But there were... circumstances surrounding that death which she did not feel comfortable letting go of. She also did not feel comfortable reporting these misgivings to the police (absurd since she basically knew _only _cops these days) because of their lack of real basis beyond the heebie-jeebies. Stir all that together in a pot, and Maura was about to have the cleanest kitchen on the block. If Angela hadn't found someone to help her out, Bo, it might have been the cleanest kitchen on the Eastern Seaboard._

_ Bo Dennis, Private Investigator, dealt in cases that most everyone else would deem too crazy, or so said her website. It embarrassed Angela to google these types of things, but Bo seemed to be the real deal. And hell, she fully admitted that she was desperate. It bothered her to even say allowed that she had hired a paranormal investigator, but the younger woman had sounded so happy over the phone that Angela was willing to pay the full price of a consult plus the price of gas. That came as a sign that she was doing the right thing. Even if it was only helping out a young person in need._

_ "Usually I take a case whether a client can pay or not, and don't get me wrong, I love what I do, but it really is a nice change of pace to get the going rate," Bo had laughed over the phone, almost in giddy relief. Her kindness warmed Angela's bones and they arranged a meeting soon after._

_ Suddenly, a ring cut through the haze of her memories. She recognized it as her own cell phone, not Maura's house phone, and she darted across the floor to the dining table to answer it – probably Bo, calling for directions. _

_ When the _Maura Isles_ caller ID glowed in her hand, however, her stomach dropped. _Jane. _"Hi, Maura. Is everything ok? Is Janey ok?" _

_ "She's fine, Angela. Well, getting there, but I called to tell you she just woke up!" Maura said through tears and a no-doubt a dazzling smile from the other line. _

_ Before Angela could whoop in jubilee, however, a pound at the door made her curse the untimely convergence of everything. Well, she wasn't about to send Bo away for nothing, and she wasn't about to miss her daughter's conscious face after days of sedation._

_ "Sorry, Maura, that was the door but I promise I will be right over. Tell Jane I'm coming!"_

_ "Oh, but she's not-" before the doctor could explain that Jane had indeed woken up, but was now asleep again, Angela slammed the flip phone shut and opened the door to a young woman, younger than Jane and Maura, clad in leather of all sorts, with a deadly soft stare._

_ "You must be Angela. I'm Bo," Bo chuckled and held out her hand, feeling just a bit jealous as she took in the luxury of the home she'd arrived at. Mrs. Rizzoli took it. "No offense, but wow. I can see now how you can afford my price."_

_ "Oh no, honey. Long story, but the house isn't mine. I can tell you in the car, come on," she shut the front door, locked it, and left a confused private investigator to stand under the awning. _

_ "Wait, where are we going?" _

_ "My daughter, Jane, I told you about her? Well, she's in the hospital and she just woke up. I hope you don't mind having our meeting either on the way or in her room, but I can't miss seeing her."_

_ "Of course not; that'll be fine," Bo rolled her eyes good-naturedly. This already was a very interesting case, and with Kenzi deciding to stay behind, she was all alone. Good thing she knew Boston pretty well. She followed Angela to the already-running Buick._

* * *

"I'm Maura; It's a pleasure," Dr. Isles said. When Bo took her hand, a heavy pulse thumped her palm. The fingers themselves felt soft; they cradled Maura, not just her hand. The color orange waltzed inside of her head, and sex did, too. Images of sex, the taste of sex settled in her mouth; the smell of it coated her nostrils. She made a mental note to research the correlation between color theory and arousal: no one made her sweat like this, she thought as she glanced at Jane. W_ell, almost no one._ Even Bo's eyes looked tumultuous with dancing light. Was that the spark of chemistry? Butterflies, heartbeat, and lust? Check. However, the lust felt general, with not really a place to go. The butterflies felt placed there, not the naturally arising ones she had become used to since taking up the lab space at BPD headquarters.

Nevertheless, her voice created a hell of a manufactured butterfly. "Bo. Likewise, Maura," she smiled, turned to the figure lying in the hospital bed next to them. "And this is Jane, hm?" At the the last word, Maura would have sworn Bo's brown eyes flickered to blue, but only for a nanosecond. Impossible, she knew. She really needed to get home and get some sleep when this whole ordeal is over.

"That's her, my oldest," said Angela, cutting in, "would you believe this is her third time getting shot on the job? Twice that it's been serious like this. I swear she's gonna give me a heart attack," she shook her head. Bo smiled, her gaze never leaving Jane.

"She's strong, isn't she?" the private investigator asked. She placed a hand on the edge of the bed to steady herself, and Maura felt empty at the shift in her attention.

"She's _very _strong," she said in an attempt to bring Bo's gaze back to her, for reasons she had no idea what to name. "She should be dead. In fact... in fact she was, before I arrived on the scene. Luckily, she took to the CPR I administered. She's nowhere near out of the woods yet, but I can't help but think she'll find a way to do it all again."

"She will. She'll pull through," the brunette said.

She then sat, her body, lithe, sexy as it was, plopping a bit unceremoniously into a nearby chair. They spoke for several hours as new acquaintances, the three of them each attempting to gain an understanding of the others. Maura updated the other two on Jane's condition and her strange questions about her death experience. Bo talked about life in Toronto, her business, and her friends. Angela listened, and filled Bo in on life in Boston as the BPD's cafe proprietor. Though they got along well, the Torontonian soon decided that business was in need of being done. She smiled, close-mouthed, and then turned to Angela. "So, Angela. I don't mean to distract from the current... situation, but I think we should talk about what you called me for."

"Oh! Of course. I was worried that the cat would be out of the bag with Jane, but I guess we lucked out, didn't we?" the matriarch said, eyes on her sleeping daughter. "Fire away, honey."

"We spoke a little over the phone about your... issue, but I always like to hear the story in person. It gives me context for what I'm... researching," stated the investigator. She tiptoed around the subject as best she could, but she was about as discreet as a thunderbolt.

It was the same thunder rumble in Maura's gut – the woman was foreign, fine, sleek, but her effects a tumult. What made her appearance and her ambiance so incongruent?

"Sweetheart, Jane's asleep, we don't have to worry about keeping secrets. Maura won't tell, right?" asked Angela to her daughter's best friend. She fiddled with the charm against her chest, a precursor both to her upcoming blackmail (she had tricks for making sure Maura didn't talk), and the open couple of buttons of her oxford shirt. When Bo breathed a sigh in relief, she angled her chair more towards Maura so that they formed a half-circle at the side of Jane's bed.

What could the Chief Medical Examiner of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts do except say yes? Jane would probably find out somehow, but she could at least _try _to keep whatever was happening under wraps. "I won't tell."

Angela acknowledged her, and then began to whisper. "Well, my best friend, Carla Talucci, her sister passed away the day after Jane went into surgery," the way that she conspired had the other, younger women rapt with attention. "Maria, you know, she lived alone, not too far from where my ex-husband and I raised our kids. If you thought Carla was a nuisance, oh boy, this woman could gossip like no other. Quite the temper she had, too. But she was family, you know? The family you don't really like, but you put up with all the same. Anyway, she lived alone, and the police found her body when a neighbor started to complain about the smell coming from the house. Apparently she had been collecting Maria's mail because she thought she was on vacation-"

"And, and this neighbor, did she say anything about how Maria died?" Bo, in a thinly veiled expression of her impatience, tried to steer the conversation in a direction more suited to her purposes. Maura just sipped her coffee.

"Oh no. I don't think she ever saw the body. Carla was out of the country, seeing the homeland, and so the coroner's office called me to notify her family. Poor Maria, but thank God she looked alright. Peaceful almost. They said she had a heart attack, must've died in her sleep."

"Seems legitimate to me," said Bo.

"I agree," said Maura. She nodded to the brunette and crossed her legs, shifting in her seat.

"Well, that's not even the part I called you about," Angela said. She put her purse down. "This is what I didn't want Janie to know. First of all, I don't think she would believe me, and second of all, I think she would want to check it out for herself. I can't do that to her right now.

"But, there were some weird goings on I couldn't really wrap my head around, you know? Carla asked me to go to Maria's and start getting ready for the clean-up while she flew home. So, I did, and I'll tell you, there was just a weird vibe at the place."

"What kind of weird vibe? Anything misplaced or out of the ordinary? Anything missing?" Bo inquired. Maura wanted to curl into herself and hide, both for shame at her appearance, and to mask her arousal. Even the freckle just below the woman's nose added to her sex appeal. Was there anything about her that didn't?

"Exactly! It was real strange – there were pictures of Maria and her Ma knocked over, the glass broken and stuff. The cops said they thought she could have done it while she was having that heart attack, but no one had been in the house, so it had to be her. There were these photo albums that had pictures of her and her ex-husband ripped up inside," Angela whispered so lowly that both of the others had to lean in.

"Well, where is her ex? Could he have had anything to do with it? If you suspect foul play, Jane would say to check the spouse first, above all others," Maura chimed in. Her coffee became tepid, no longer suited to sipping in order to keep her mouth occupied, so she figured she might as well join.

"That's the thing, Maura, he's dead. Died of a heart attack a couple years ago," Angela said in so severe and wondrous a tone that even Bo's eyebrows rose. "The reason I called Bo is because she's a paranormal investigator. And, I feel crazy even sayin' this, but Carla told me about five years back, when Maria and Tom were goin' through their divorce, that she put the _malocchio _on him. Now, usually it ain't deadly, and usually you can get rid of it by goin' to old Mrs. Messina on fourth, but Carla's convinced that it killed him. She's also convinced that somehow that came back on Maria. She's just beside herself with grief, Bo. She's insane right now. But I promised her I would look into it. You wanna know the weirdest part?"

At this, her two younger counterparts nodded.

"When I was leavin' the house, after I had cleaned up enough, I looked at the doorposts on either side you know, and there were these real clear, deep fingernail marks through the wood, like somebody had been dragged outta there. But when I shook my head to try and focus, they were gone. They disappeared! Plus, with Maria complaining about rattling windows and slamming doors at night, I just don't know. Maybe I believe somethin's goin' on, too, but I have no way of knowing. God, we told her not to get into that stuff! All those old wives' tales!" she cursed, tears seeping into her voice and coating her eyes.

"And Jane can't know?" Maura asked. All of it seemed a little absurd to her.

"Honey, you think she would believe me? I barely believe me, hell. She can't know at least until Bo checks into it," Angela chuckled, mostly at her own disbelief. When she looked to the investigator in question, they heard Jane stir.

"Well, I can't make any promises that there's anything supernatural behind this, but I will definitely take a look around. When should we go? I know you'd like to be with your daughter for awhile, so I can wait at my hotel for a few hours before you decide anything. I'll just need a ride back to your home to get my car," Bo said. She smiled at the older woman, who reached out of her chair to hug her unexpectedly.

"Oh, thank you, thank you! I'm just glad you're not convinced I'm nuts!" Angela laughed.

"But I am," came a hoarse grumble from the hospital bed.

"Jane!" Angela cried, and her daughter winced from the noise. She ran to her, too, engulfing her shoulders in a hug.

"You're lucky there's no one else in the room, Ma, Jesus. You can't just be spouting this crazy shit in public! What's gotten into you, huh? A private investigator for what, little old Italian ladies?" whined Jane. Despite her sour attitude, she patted Angela's back. Maura stifled a giggle. The homicide detective, however, stared daggers at the stranger in the room.

"Hey, Handsome," Bo replied to the scrutiny. Her eyes flickered, brown to blue and back again, if Maura saw correctly. Whatever the phenomenon, she fancied Jane, that much seemed obvious. Bo stood and held out her hand, and Angela moved away. "It's nice to meet you, after all your Mom has had to say about you. You're a hero."

Jane suspiciously accepted. "No, I'm just good at my job. Did you say you were from Toronto? I was a little loopy for awhile there; didn't hear the early parts of your talk so good."

"I did," the Canadian brunette's voice cascaded over Jane's mostly immobile body. It should have soothed her, but she went pale under the investigator's gaze. It passed after a few moments, but Bo committed the look to memory.

"That's weird," Jane muttered, but then filed it away. _Tamsin was from Toronto... _"But honestly, why are you here encouraging her?! I'm sorry, but we don't need a private investigator to sniff out Ma's crackpot suspicions. I think you should go."

"Jane! Don't be rude," Maura laughed. Jane under the influence of strong medication always had the capacity to shock and embarrass her, so she couldn't help but be amused. Jane only rolled her eyes and peered back at the face above her own.

_Fucking gorgeous. Are they all statuesque in the TO? This one's not like Tamsin, though. She's darker. And much, much more attractive. Tamsin had the whole Valkyrie goddess thing going on but... damn, Bo is curvacious and supple and... like Maura, but if Maura had an evil twin... dark Maura. With full lips and black eyes._

The woman in question moved in next to Jane's right ear. With a hush, she said, "Tell you what. I'll come around later, without your Mom. We'll talk, just us two. What do you say?" A orange glow hummed against Jane's shoulder from Bo's hand, and immediately the bed-ridden Jane softened. She felt drowsy.

But she still nodded. Then she slept.


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: after this chapter is when we get to the meaty stuff. FYI, the case will be more Lost Girl than R&I in nature. Happy reading and reviewing!**

* * *

"_I've finally found you_..." Jane heard someone, a familiar timbre in the haze of her sleep. The voice frightened her, and she stirred, but the hand in hers calmed her. Was it Maura? No, Maura's words spun softly, like music. This person sounded more like the drizzle of rain. And Maura usually held her left hand: whoever had found her held onto her right. She didn't sense the love she often did when the medical examiner touched her; these fingers instead pulsed awe and intrigue into her. If she opened her eyes, who would she see? She knew it felt like she were being surveyed, as if she were an anomaly and the figure at her bedside found the beeps in her heart monitor to be applauded. This half-dream resembled all those times she'd imagined showing up to work in her underwear: vulnerable, uncomfortable, and yet oddly thrilling. She could take no more, but when she finally gathered the courage to look, she saw only darkness and the outline of a person seated at her bedside.

Needless to say, it scared her shitless. "Who the fuck are you?" she growled, not screamed, only because her voice could produce one sound at the moment. The dryness in her throat had never been so deadly; she couldn't scream for help.

"Relax, kid. You know me," said the figure. From a seated position, they flipped on the over-the-bed reading light.

The _beep... beep... beep _of the monitor quadrupled in speed. Jane gasped, turned white as the sheets tucked in around her legs. There was no one else – Maura had gone home for the night, no doubt convinced by her mother; there was no sign of Bo having visited again. The door to the room had been slipped shut, all so that she could have a private audience with the tall blonde with Viking blue eyes seated before her.

_Tamsin._ _Fucking... _"Tam... Tamsin? Am I fucking dead again? What the fuck is happening?!"

"Sssh... shut up, Big Shot. You want the nurses coming in here and the both of us getting in trouble? Yeah, it's me, and no you're not dead again. You escaped. Miraculously," said Tamsin. She held a finger up to her mouth, pursing her lips against it and then curling them into a ghoulish grin.

"So I'm not high out of my mind, then?" replied Jane, who attempted to sit up.

"Well, hell, I don't know. You might be. But even if you are, you're not imagining this," the Valkyrie laughed softly.

Jane studied her face for a long while. The cheekbones, the icy stare, the square shoulders, even the leather jacket was the same. All as she remembered, even though they had supposedly been in another world. Or dimension. Or whatever. Fuck. She let the woman hold her hand some more, and reminisced on the first time they had been joined like that. And then it hit her.

"Hey, where are your wings?"

"Those only come out on special occasions. Like when I'm escorting a soul, or about to kick some serious ass," Tamsin answered without mirth. Jane looked, well, like shit. Still the hurricane of a woman she had seen on the other side, but a lot more weathered. She guessed a nine millimeter rippling through your gut would do that to you. Rizzoli was the last person on the Earth who needed sarcastic bullshit right now. "I came to see if it was true, if you really did pull through. You know, since I was in the neighborhood."

"If it weren't for Maura, I suspect you and I would have had a lot more time together," Jane sighed, closing her eyes and cursing her situation. She really was too old to be getting shot anymore. Even Tamsin sitting a foot or two away from her couldn't really convince her that she was real.

"Maura, huh? The woman who patched you up the first time?" Tamsin recalled the woman in red, hands soaked in Jane's blood. It saddened her; the image of the two of them, one well on her way to cheating death for the first time, the other contemplating it if she had to live life without the detective who drifted further away with each ticking second.

"How'd you know that?" Jane asked. She wavered between amazement and being flabbergasted.

"When I took your hand the first time, I saw it all. It's... a thing that I can do. I actually don't have much control of it, but I am shown the history of my charges when I pick them up. It's complicated, but don't worry about it right now," the Valkyrie waved her hand in dismissal. She also wondered whether Maura was a necromancer or something. Jane breathed, sighed, moved, for sure, but she had for sure been dead, too.

"Oh. I guess I can't really doubt it, can I? That's something that only someone who was there would know. Man, some weird shit has been going on since I got hit. I'm starting to think I sustained a head injury. I mean, here you are: someone I thought my brain had made up. And then today... today? I think today. I was sitting here with Maura and in walks my Ma with some fucking paranormal investigator. I mean, she was hot, but my Ma has never done anything THAT crazy."

Tamsin leaned back, open to listening, figuring that Jane needed to talk more than anything else. She could help with that. And maybe in the meantime she could figure out a story to tell Odin about this one that got away. "Sounds peachy. And why does your mother need a paranormal investigator?"

"She's convinced that one of our family friends died because of a ghost or something. Can you believe that?" said Jane, and as soon as the question left her lips, she winced. Of course Tamsin would believe something like that, right? Christ, she _was _a paranormal figure. Supposedly. The blonde laughed: as if she, over a thousand years old, still had sensibilities to offend. Jane caught this, and much to her own relief, felt comfortable enough to continue. "The weirdest part, though, wasn't that this lady believed what Ma was saying, but when she touched me. I felt instantly calm, like almost drugged again. Then I thought I saw her eyes change color and I _knew _I was fucking high."

Tamsin's gaze turned severe. Her arms crossed and she leaned forward. "Wait a minute. Her eyes changed color?"

"Yeah. They were brown, but then, for a split second, they were blue. Like some kind of light flicker of something? I don't know," Jane said. The invested interrogation of her companion intrigued her.

"Shit, how old was she? Did you get a name?"

"I'd say she was in her early thirties. And yeah, she did... Bo, I think?"

"No fucking way. All the way out here in Boston?"

"You know her?"

"Yeah, I live with her."

After this confession, Jane was silent for a long moment. Tamsin watch a war of thoughts play out on her face, a war she'd experienced herself hundreds of times before as a homicide detective in her own city. The cadence of the hospital room returned; the numerous mechanic blips and coughs normalized. "So... remember when you were going to take me to wherever we were going? You said you were something called fae. Did I make that up?"

_Ah, _Tamsin thought, _I see where this is going._ "No."

"So you really are a Valkyrie? Fae really are real?"

"Yes."

"... Is Bo fae?"

"Yeah, Kid. She is. And her job is to catch rogue ones." the blonde sighed. So not the route she saw their conversation going.

"What are her powers, then? What is she?" Jane asked.

"I think it's better if she tells you in person," said Tamsin, standing suddenly.

"Hey, ho, hey, where are you going?" the Bostonian barked, watching the key to understanding all of this walk away.

"Out to the hall; I get no reception in here. And Bo hates dropped calls." The valkyrie pulled out a flip phone, ancient, and Jane marveled at the fact that it even worked.

"Wait, why are you calling Bo?" she asked.

"You look rough. I mean, good considering you were dead a few days ago, but rough. You're sallow, and weak. So not the badass I encountered in the halfway realm. Bo, she can fix that," Tamsin snarked.

"What, like some kinda make over or something? That's fucking rude," said Jane. _Of all the fucking things to say..._

"What?! No! Look, you'll see, alright? Plus, if she thinks your mom is telling the truth about whatever it is she saw, then it'll do her some good to have me as backup."

* * *

"Hello, detectives," two words from around the threshold and Jane already knew who they belonged to. They sang in the mangled mess that was her gut. Even with the trauma, she felt the burr of that morning's touch warm in her belly, and with Bo's face came the realization that this was the second woman she'd developed an attraction to in the past few months, after 36 years of life as pretty-much straight.

When she entered the room full on, however, Jane watched the electricity crack and break between Tamsin and Bo. The valkyrie narrowed her brow and exposed her teeth in a smile so lustful the devil himself would blush; the investigator bit her lower lip and cradled, for a split second, a Viking bicep in her fingertips. They were the antitheses of each other. Gone was the light blue leather Bo had donned during the day, replaced by an all black ensemble, her hair pulled tightly into a ponytail and the rigid lines of her face exposed. Tamsin wore a white button-up under a gray leather jacket, with her blonde hair wrapped into a bun. Detective Rizzoli decided to look away in the seemingly inevitable event that they kissed.

"Hey. She tells me you've met," Tamsin nodded in the direction of Jane, but found herself incapable of dragging her eyes from Bo.

"Yes. Her mom seems to have a case. We haven't checked it out yet, but I was gonna do some reconnaissance on my own tonight. That is, until you called. Kenzi's been waiting for you, T. Says you got one of your Valkyrie calls but didn't come back," Bo said. She admonished her friend with no more than a look.

"I know. You wanna know why I haven't been back? Why I'm here?" the Valkyrie asked. The other woman raised her eyebrows in assent.

"Her," when she pointed to Jane, all three of them watched each other. Jane reddened, suddenly feeling guilt for having lived. "She died, but somehow came back here. I was supposed to take her to Valhalla, but she lived. And I needed to see her, to make sure it was true, so that I could report to Odin. He'd have my head if I lost a charge in the halfway realm."

"Jesus," Bo breathed out. She walked close enough to Jane's bedside for the invalid to look away. She scrutinized the bedridden detective, watched her limbs, still well-muscled – violence under skin. Her unruly locks guarded an immaculate face, the kind people wrote about: chiseled lips, Mediterranean cheek bones. If she kissed them, would her lips smack of wine when she pulled away? There was such a masculine energy to her femininity, her litheness beset by the ripple of a body well-kept. A weapon, a well-oiled machine, a cop's finest tool. Cops, in her experience, tasted the best. She locked mouths with Dyson, her on and off again detective flame, and the nerves in her brain were set ablaze. She kissed Tamsin, his partner, and it was like taking a Swedish winter into her lungs and holding it there, all while entrenched in the frigid passion of the Viking's ice-stare. _Homicide detectives might be my type_, Bo thought. "So you cheated death, huh?"

And Jane witnessed her eyes flicker from brown to steady blue, the indigo irises betraying her as equal parts spellbinding and spellbound. "No, Maura did. Her CPR resuscitated me. I was just lucky enough to benefit."

"Mmm. Is Maura your girlfriend? She seems very nice," Bo said. Her hand ghosted further up Jane's arm with each syllable.

"What? NO. No, Maura's my best friend. Just my best friend," replied Jane through a hoarse whisper. Bo's proximity made her sweat. Or maybe it was the medicine? "But why are you here? I think I really should be getting some sleep, you know? Having been shot through the belly and all. Really takes it out of a girl."

"I'm here to level with you. And I'm here to help you out," she said, and then looked knowingly to Tamsin, who stepped in, bringing them both chairs.

"Say, Jane, how long did it take you to recover from your last... you know, one of these?" she asked, smiling throughout.

"Six months to desk duty. Two more months after that to be cleared for active," Jane responded gravely. She did not see the joke in the road that lay ahead. Her stomach throbbed in agreement, and she winced at the pain.

"What if I told you you didn't have to go through any of that?" Bo forewent the chair to bring her face to Jane's, hovering precariously over the bed, their noses touching and then not touching. "That I could heal you?"

"I'd say you were full of shit," the Italian breathed into the Canadian's lips.

"Just relax. Feel this, would you? Don't fight it," it wasn't the healing she had been told about, but the orange touch again. As soon as it hit her though, the pain dulled. She believed it. She believed that Bo could do it.

But she needed answers first. "What are you? You're... you're fae, like Tamsin. But what kind of fae? What do you do?"

"I'm a succubus," Bo replied, not moving from her spot. She had even begun to stroke the top of Jane's head. "I feed off the sexual energy of others. I can also use life force that I've taken and give it to others, and that's how I heal people."

That made perfect sense. A sex fae. Now it was the only plausible explanation for her existence in this circus of a few hours that Jane Rizzoli had had. Bo was walking, talking, laughing sex. Her touch was sex. Jane felt more satisfied by the energy pulsing from the hand on her forearm than she had in all the times she'd slept with Casey combined. "Oh?" Her voice silkened to match Bo's prowess, her seduction. "And how do you do that?"

"Open your mouth, Handsome, and I'll show you," Bo had maneuvered so closely to Jane's mouth that as she spoke, her lips continually melded and departed from the detective's lower one. It thrilled the both of them; Tamsin cleared her throat.

"Hey, is this for real? Can she do that? Heal me?" Jane asked the valkyrie.

"Yeah," she replied.

"Does it hurt?"

"No. It's the most amazing fucking thing you've ever felt. I mean that literally, too. It's most definitely a _fucking _thing," Tamsin offered. She smirked at the sweating human immobile in her bed. So desperate to be unleashed onto the world again.

"Ok, I'll do it. I mean, I'll let you do it," Detective Rizzoli exhaled in a rushed breath. Part of her was so drawn to the idea that she all but pulled Bo to her and kissed her just to see if it would work. Another part of her genuinely feared it. She had known these people all of a few hours. Spoken to both of them only twice. Wasn't even sure that they were real, and not just her imagination. Wasn't certain that they were pure-intentioned.

But Bo needed no more. She looked intent on ravishing her patient. She licked her lips, her tongue curling in delight and anticipation, she exposed her bright blue eyes to the sickly hospital light and they became desperate in hue. Needy, hungry. In need of Jane. Her mouth plunged infinitesimally closer with each passing moment, and Jane felt helpless in the assault. Since when had restoring her health turned into her willingly giving herself up as prey? Bo seemed a benevolent predator, but a predator nonetheless. And it wasn't the hunt that haunted Jane, no, that quite thrilled her. It was rather the guilt she felt at the pleasure, the fear of the unknown.

"NO! No, no. Wait. I want Maura," she gasped, finally able to speak.

Bo pulled back, and Tamsin cocked her head in the general direction of the spectacle. "What?" they both asked.

"I'll let you do it, but I want Maura here with me. Bring her here first."


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: OMG I am so sorry for how long this update took, but here's a little running list of things that have happened to me since last chapter: I moved to a new apartment, I got accepted into a Master's Degree Prep Program, I have been studying 5 hours a day for the GRE, and I had to check in with a cardiologist several times over the past few weeks to make sure I don't have a bum ticker. Good news is, after that little health scare, I seem to be in excellent health! This means I should be updating more regularly in between my study sessions. I hope you enjoy, and happy reading and reviewing!**

* * *

"Call her up and then we'll get to it, then," Tamsin said. She nodded to the phone by Jane's bed. The three of them, Bo still close, but no longer dangerously so, looked to the object in question.

Jane seemed to mull it over before making her decision. "Nah, I can't. You're just going to have to show up," she responded. For one beat, two, three, she elaborated no more, let the others wonder at her, then she spoke again. "Maura's gonna be real suspicious if I call her close to midnight and ask her to come down here. She won't do it, especially if I tell her it's so that Bo here can try and heal me. One, she'll just think I'm high, and two, she'll tell me that either way, it's impossible to heal from a wound like this in seconds, let alone any faster than I'm healin' now."

"You sure you don't want to convince her? I think that would probably be better than me showing up and throwing her over my shoulder and into the back of my truck. I'm saying that I _could_ go pick her up but you two seem real buddy-buddy, if you know what I mean," offered Tamsin. She rose to grab her keys off the bedside table, but Bo remained curiously laconic.

"Oh! And you and Bo aren't, huh? I don't appreciate the insinuation," Jane snapped. She sat up straighter, ignoring the pulsating fire feeling against her belly button. "Besides, it has to be Bo."

"Why?" the blonde asked, figuring Bo might be able to convince Jane to do it all without Maura while she was out. Maybe Jane just wasn't the type who fancied an audience.

"Because, she can use whatever magical orange shit that comes out of her hand to sway Maura if she can't otherwise. Something tells me she does just fine without it, but it never hurts to have a backup plan. God, what am I even saying? This better work."

After Jane finished, Bo spoke for the first time since Maura was asked for. A dusky, knowing, impish mien befell her. Her countenance betrayed just how much _fun _this new knowledge she'd gathered about Jane and Maura was. It filled her with a certain nostalgia for her own early days with her own brainy doctor, and it showed in the way her eyes darkened and her smile curled. "Of course it doesn't. I've even been by her house; it's not too far from here. See you in twenty?" she seemed to be talking to both detectives in the room, but only looked to Jane. She took the Bostonian's hand in hers, stroked it, the blackness of all her leather imbuing their connection with what Jane could only describe as sweet shadow. She was man enough in her own morphine-tinged mind to admit that she wanted more of it. Maybe on her lips this time. God, she really needed Maura around – like now.

"I'm counting on you to be the real deal, Bo, to do what you say. Bring me Maura and convince the both of us."

The succubus, dragging all of the charge in the room with her, charge from Tamsin's chest, charge from Jane's, simpered before she stopped in the doorway. "I'll be back, Detectives," her feminine lilt, mellifluous, chaotically velvet, sang further and further south inside the both of them.

* * *

The '69 Camaro lurched along Maura's immaculate street, sniffing out the exact house from the rest of the cookie-cutter elite homes on the block. _They sure beat my place_, mused Bo, her hands plastered onto the wheel, driving the horses under the hood along. Her demeanor from the hospital had not faltered: something big brewed between Jane and Maura. It almost swept away her curiosity over the possible fae doings here in Boston, in Jane's old neighborhood. Almost. She needed to check out the Talucci house, ASAP. But first, she needed Jane healthy. Angela was a pretty attentive and intuitive client, but Jane, well, Jane was a cop, and any time that Bo could have the law on her side, she did so. Paranormal investigation didn't exactly get you in with the locals, but cops? Cops always did, especially hero cops like Jane. _Jane_. Something about the detective, something titanic, bubbled below the surface. It manifested in her physique: muscles peaked and valleyed under the bronze of her skin, but they were meat and blood proof of her personality – her brusque, her bravado, and her rippling confidence. _She must taste like sin_, the succubus delighted in the thought, in the possibility. But, there was Maura to be considered in this equation. Yes, Maura and Jane. Five minutes in the same room with them today, two seconds of hearing Jane talk about the doctor, and Bo felt outmatched in the face of whatever was between them. She counted it a shame, as she turned of the car and strode up the walkway to the door, that all of that chemistry sizzled and Maura hadn't even seen Jane naked. What a sight it would be, too, with all that height and those biceps and those infernal eyes…

"Bo! I'm afraid Angela's asleep, but I can tell her you dropped by if you like," Maura, black-satin-pajamas-and-matching-robe-adorned, spoke with sleep in her voice.

Bo hadn't realized she even knocked on the door. "Thank you, Maura, but I'm not here for Angela. I'm here for you," she recovered nicely, putting away her darker thoughts and recalling her more common, less unsettling, air. Professional, sincere, and more caring than predatory.

"For me?" Maura asked. She looked down at herself, and then realized that despite the late hour, maybe she should have invited her guest in instead of questioning her here at her doorstep.

"Yes. Jane, she's awake at the hospital right now, and she wants to see you. She's going to be receiving some treatment and she specifically requested that you be there." Unlike the woman before her, Bo could be a master at dancing around the facts; this skill was only augmented if it aided her in the purpose of helping someone out. But Maura? Maura didn't seem to be taking to the half-truth very well.

"What? Jane's receiving treatment? At this hour? Is she alright?" the pathologist asked these questions in a flurry of activity around her living room, discarding her robe and gathering her purse. "Please excuse me while I get dressed – wait. How would you know this?" in her hurry, she had neglected to hear the inconsistencies in Bo's statement. The dawn of it all halted her in her tracks. "You're not family and it's long past visiting hours-"

The paranormal investigator wasted no time in entering the house like an apparition, and pulsing her aura into Maura's wrist. "Calm down. Just trust me, and let's go to the hospital. Jane wants you, ok? She wants you there," she said.

Was it the words that pacified her? Maybe Bo's darkness, the darkness tempered by the goodness of her character? How could someone be so dangerous-looking, but safe-feeling? Her touch was like security itself, enough to drag her out of her incredulity and into a semblance of trust. "Ok," she nodded simply.

"Go ahead and get dressed, and then we'll head out. I'll wait out here," Bo smiled, letting go. Immediately Maura saw her not as a goddess anymore, but rather as a regular, if not a bit strange, woman. Sexy still, alluring still, but not supernatural. The trust stayed in her belly, but she wondered what specifically about the succubus' touch made her so… _irresistible. _Even after climbing the stairs, sliding into the first pair of jeans she could find, and wrestling into one of Jane's old shirts, she failed to come up with and explanation.

However, she knew when she came down again and saw the investigator standing and waiting for her, that Bo was good. Ultimately, very good, and very well-intentioned. Jane needed her, so to the hospital they would both go. She just hoped her best friend was going to be alright, no matter what the circumstances.

She followed Bo out the door, locked it and checked it twice, and shimmied into the low passenger seat of the Camaro. It smelled of fast food and something that was either a devastating perfume or the Canadian's natural scent. When they pulled away from her street and headed toward the main road, she could contain herself no longer. "What is wrong with Jane?"

"Nothing is wrong with her. Well, not anything more than what was wrong with her before. Someone sure did a number on her, didn't they?" the driver asked, eyes never leaving the road.

"Yes, they did. It's a miracle that she survived. And yet, she seems to have a knack for those types of things," Maura all but scoffed, the anger at her best friend for dying yet again still brimming beneath the surface. It was young, timorous even in its appearances, but still there nonetheless.

Bo noticed it. It would be best if some of it dissipated before they saw Jane, so she goaded it out of its prim and proper cage. They sped along, and she figured that they could fit in a little conversation before they reached the hospital. "I heard that she actually died. Is that true? Is that even possible?"

"She did," Maura affirmed, whispering for fear of betraying the tears at the back of her vocal tract. "And technically, yes, it is possible. Jane of course, has managed to die several times, much to the hysteria of her friends and family. I swear sometimes that she enjoys running us all ragged," the tears were gone soon after that, replaced by an annoyance. As quickly as it turned, however, it returned into sadness, the root of all Maura's rage. "I know that isn't true, I know it. But I just can't imagine my life without her, not just in any capacity, but in every capacity. She must know that. So the fact that she does what she does sometimes gets the better of me. I'm sorry," she stated firmly, with only a polite regret.

Bo blushed. She knew that if given the chance, her friends might say the same things about her. "I get it, I really do. There's no need to be sorry. Look, Jane, she seems like a nice person. She seems like a great person, actually. A brave person. I'm sure that she would never do anything to hurt you. But I'll tell you what: we're here. So if you want, you can tell her all of this yourself. I'd just wait til she's feeling a little better," she smiled, a disarming smile, and then walked around the newly parked car to help Maura out of her seat. The doctor nodded in assent, and they fell into an easy quiet as they climbed the back set of stairs all the way to Jane's floor. Maura would have questioned it all if the look on Bo's face had been anything but the complete confidence she had only seen in Jane before. They made it down the hall undetected and then entered the room, where Jane and Tamsin awaited.

"Hey, Maura," Jane, a little worse for the wear, grinned anyway at the sight of the two of them approaching. Bo brought up the rear, and for good reason. Maura, in her haphazard outfit more Rizzoli than the hospital gown Jane wore, smelled like home, redolent with all the olfactory nuances of the Isles home: gourmet tea, vanilla, the flower of the month from that ridiculous catalogue, and most importantly, that unqualifiable Maura scent that reminded her of climbing into a cool bed after a hot August day at work. Her face carried enough emotion to fill an epic. All of it edified Jane. Concern, gratitude, relief, warmth, maybe even a little arousal. _This is how you love someone_. Leave it to Maura to be the textbook on something so profound. Now she was ready to try whatever Bo had in mind. She was ready to stand next to her best friend again, uninjured and tall.

"Hi, sweetheart. I take it you're ok?" Maura asked. When Jane nodded, she looked to the Norse blonde towering off to the detective's other side, her curiosity flaming anew. "And may I ask who you are?"

"You mean you haven't found time to tell her about our little… excursion, Jane?" the woman, sardonically aghast, shook her head, and then turned to answer, "I'm Tamsin. I'll let Jane tell you how we met."

"Yeah, maybe another time," Jane rolled her eyes. "Bo, can you get the door?"

As the succubus moved for the knob, Maura interjected. "Oh I don't think hospital policy allows for the closing of-"

"Relax, Doc. I took care of the nurses; we'll be fine," Bo said. She chuckled at Maura's skittishness, her last fleeting moment of minor concern for the night. What she was about to find out probably wouldn't go over well. She might have to have Lauren call her up to play the role of respected-scientist-slash-fellow-human.

"Maur, I'm gonna need you to listen closely to everything we say. And for that I suggest you pull up a chair," Jane motioned to the chair closest to her left side, up against the bed.

"How is it that you always end up calling the shots when you land yourself in the hospital? You should be resting," the pathologist said, annoyed. She complied anyway, setting her purse on the table with the phone and a vase of flowers she had brought in earlier.

"What can I say? It's the Rizzoli way," the patient said. "But enough clowning around. What has Bo told you?"

"Not much," at Maura's statement, Bo cleared her throat. So much for pegging Maura as discreet. "Just that you were going to have a procedure done and wanted me here. Which I now know is absurd. What's really going on?"

"Well… that's not entirely a lie," Tamsin said.

"Right, but it ain't the truth. I'm not receiving a procedure from medical doctors tonight. I probably won't be receiving one for a long time if this works out," Detective Rizzoli clarified. If her best friend was going to buy any of this, she needed to be as straight up as possible.

"That doesn't really answer my question. It just tells me what _isn't _going on."

"I know. Ok, let's just cut to the chase then, huh?"

"I'd prefer it."

As they talked only to one another, Bo and Tamsin shared a knowing look. They awaited the return of both of them to the real world.

"Alright. Bo… well, please don't freak out. Bo is going to try and heal me," as soon as the words rushed out of her mouth, Jane closed one eye in a wince, ready for the onslaught of scientific jargon as to why that was absurd. It didn't come.

"You mean, like the lomilomi massage of native Hawai'i? Or some sort of spiritual ritual? Jane, you know I value the anthropological importance of cultural and homeopathic medical practices. Why would I freak out?" Maura drew her brows together as she spoke. She knew Jane often picked and chose what she listened to out of her sometimes abstruse tidbits of information, but surely the cop would have been intuitive enough to catch on to her respect for other cultures' medicine? The west, after all, by no means had a monopoly on health.

"What? No! Not like a séance, Maura! Are you kidding me right now? No," Jane double-took at the doctor holding her hand. "Like for real healing. Like I can walk right up out of this bed and out the door when she's done with me. Right, Bo?"

"Like you can run a marathon or stay in bed all day with a handsome stranger," Bo replied, supposedly talking to Jane but looking only at Maura and grinning.

"Well, that's impossible, Jane. There is no way you can heal any faster than you are now, at least that I'm aware of, besides plenty of bed rest and antibiotics," Maura said. She gave a look of condescending confusion that angered Tamsin.

"Ok, look, I don't know about all of you, but I'd rather not spend all day in this rank-ass hospital, alright? So just do it, Succuface, so we can get on with our lives and figure out what the fuck is going on in little Italy over there. Christ," said the blonde, voice rising with each phrase. Bo laughed and held up her hands, and the two humans looked at her like she grew a second head.

"She has a point, even though that was rude. What do you say, Handsome, you ready to walk outta here?" the succubus returned to the right side of Jane, closing in again. Her full lips, no longer moving, beckoned to the Bostonian, unsure whether it was because they held her freedom or because they were so very pretty. They locked eyes with one another, and Jane felt the pleasant buzzing in her gut again when Bo stroked her shoulder. Only a squeeze from Maura roused her from the pleasant fire sparking in her trunk.

"Yeah, just give me a second," she said, turning to the doctor, "look, Maura. I know this sounds weird as all hell, believe me. I think it does, too. And it scares me a little, to tell you the truth. That's why I wanted you here. You been at every one of my procedures, stitch-ups and doctor's appointments since I shot myself, and you make me feel safe."

"I haven't missed one," Maura smiled, kissing the back of Jane's hand.

"That's right, and now shouldn't be the first time you do, just because it's a little out there. But Bo told me basically how it works, and even if nothing happens, I guarantee you it's not gonna get worse, ok? So just roll with me a little bit here."

"Ok," Maura replied simply.

"Ok?"

"Ok. I think this is all a little ridiculous, but I trust you. At least in the 'this won't hurt me' capacity," Dr. Isles looked to her driver then, a knowing, silent exchange passing between them.

"Then let's begin, shall we? Tamsin, guard the door," Bo said, delegating immediately. "Now, Maura, I'm sorry but I'm going to have ask you to let go. I want all of this going to Jane and her injuries."

She didn't release her grip, but instead looked to her friend for the ok. When Jane nodded, she loosened her fingers. Bo all but transformed, one hand ghosting over the trauma site, the other arm resting just above a crown of wild black curls, Jane's signature.

Conversely, the succubus became a sleek predator. Black eyes bored into her blues, a wild stare to match her calculated one. Hers shaded into high definition: not like a crystal blue or an ocean, dark and foreboding, or murky and indigo, but clear, the sharpest hue of the family. Jane laid there, opposing her with every passing second, Medusa viper-curls strewn about and abyssal irises challenging her own healing. Jane was a Mediterranean troublemaker. Bo was streamlined sex, however, sex on a pedestal, sex in a body like a motorcycle – roaring with intention and zipping past any defenses the patient might erect. She was curves on ice, the blue in her eyes the blue of longing, because she so clearly longed for, wanted, the woman in the bed. The woman usually typed nationalities, ethnicities so easily, but could only classify Bo as alien – she was no nation's calling card, just pleasure poured into leather. Usually people's complexities were so simple to Jane, but Bo's simplicity in that sense baffled her – how could a person only feel like, well, _a feeling_? The predator opened her mouth to reveal teeth and tongue as human looking as everyone else in the room, pink, soft, white, fleshy, but unlike the others, a hum reverberated against the detective's chest. It soothed her, and yet overfilled her with desire. Never had Jane felt so much like an archaeologist before; the desire to excavate the ancientest thing about Bo, the sex that came from her mouth, practically healed her itself. Her tools in finding it all would be her own human lips. They were not merely so, or lackingly so; in fact, if she could say anything, she would say that Bo was even more entranced by her humanity.

If Maura could have heard any of her friend's thoughts, she would attest that she, too, found herself enamored with her normalness. Bo moved in for the sear, the kiss, and loss singed Maura's heartstrings. Loss of what, she knew not. One beat, two beats, three beats, she waited for their lips to meet but it never came. Instead, orange light, all from Bo's mouth, flowed into Jane, and their lips never touched. The Bostonian salivated for the briefest of moments, her pupils dilated, her body sweated….

But then she sat up. And then she stood up. When she took in a breath, she smiled and hollered, taking Bo into a hug.

Maura turned white as a sheet, and fainted. _It worked._


End file.
